Ossus
by Nielawen
Summary: What happened during the Great Sith War, in which many Jedi Padawans were lost to the Dark Side? How did the prophecy of the Chosen One come about? The ancient war is told through the eyes of Jedi Master Arca Jeth (who I thought was a female, oops hehe).


Disclaimer: I take ZIPPO credit for any names or the codes in relations to Star Wars and the official creators. NONE AT ALL. Not even the fictional characteristics I've given for already-created characters that I just happened to know nothing about…Teehehe….

---

There is no emotion; there is peace.

There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.

There is no passion; there is serenity.

There is no death; there is the Force.

-The Jedi Code__

            _The setting of the sun is upon us. The day has passed rapidly and mercilessly, even more so than the fall of the many lives that did not have a decent purpose as to fighting in the first place. _

_Many of us have fought for the good of the future. All others— numbers exceeding ours, sadly— fought differently, lost, and peer ahead in the face of Darkness. They were our youths, our prides at the heals of our discipline._

_Jedi Apprentices have fallen. Masters are despaired._

_Is there light left…?_

Arca Jeth took a step forward, leashed back by the hard-pressed grip of her apprentice— her last among the three. Arca dared not look back to the pleading eyes of the Twi'lek, but she allowed her Padawan to restrain her. Instead she watched as the young male Jedi walked over the dead grounds in which hundreds of bodies lay, souls lost in the stars, or in the deep trenches of the fire below. Though many were dead, hundreds still stood on both sides. The long line of dark robes and seething glares seemed to be lengthened. It seemed to become even unbeatable now that yet another Padawan of hers joined his brother and all others tempted by darkness. 

The white blade of her lightsaber was still activated, and her hands seemed to sweat even more as she held it with a firmer grasp.

"Master, no. They are lost. If you give in, we will lose you, too." The trembling and despaired voice of Tott Doneeta sounded like a deafening sob in her ear amidst the silence that had fallen upon the field. She refused to let go, until her Master finally relaxed, and deactivated her weapon.

"Ulic and Cay don't belong there," she said softly to hold back a scream she wanted to let out.

"They do now." A tall shadow loomed over her, a face— pale by grief— peering from a deep cloak that seemed to be meant as a shield from all that surrounded the field before them. "As brothers, they have chosen to follow each other."

"That isn't why!" Arca snapped coldly. She gestured her head to the opposite side of the field, where the shadows of the sun spread across their boundary, and there's only. "They've dominated their thoughts with power." She folded and unfolded her fingers tensely in the hand that held her lightsaber. "They've secluded their minds into thinking they can be great. The Sith have made promises to them they can't resist."

"She's right, Gurlao." Another fellow Jedi Master, Noya Kiriun, joined their conversation. She too had lost her apprentices— two of them. She looked to the line of Sith with disdain. "We thought we trained them better than that. We may feel that in part it is our fault they have been succumbed. But we can't feel regret. We need to be focused, or we will lose all the few Jedi Padawans we have left."

Gurlao Nan-Di nodded briskly, and pulled back his hood with a brave lift of his chin. He faced the dead bodies. One of them, among the hundreds, was his earliest apprentice. The other two existed along side the Sith. Fury burned within him. 

"We can still take them."

Both Arca and Noya stared at him, startled and angry. Arca scolded him first. "You're speaking foolishly, and no doubt thinking with even more stupidity. Are you not seeing what is been placed before us? It's a challenge. Hate is the Dark Side, and it's their weapon against us."

"The Dark path can dominate one forever with a single trace of following it," Noya added. "This, you know, and you know it well. You want to fight them? Resist them, and you will defeat them. Just as the Force has intended."

Arca peered down the line of remaining Jedi. Masters outnumbered apprentices by great distance. She sighed, and stared at the sun. The orange dimness colored the dirt fields, and began to cast warm shadows over the bodies on the long stretch of flat land before them all. So much loss, in the desperate battle for good over evil. She suddenly turned behind her— her apprentice hadn't spoken for a long time. 

"Tott? You've been silent for some while."

"I feel it."

Arca's brows furrowed in concern. "Feel what?"

"Them." Tott gestured forward. The Sith. "They want me, Master." Her vibrant sapphire eyes, the matching color of her skin, glazed over blindly.

At that instant, Arca's eyes became frighteningly wide, and her entire body became visibly tense. "Come back, Tott!" She shook her fiercely. "Come back to me this instant! You won't fall like the others! Never." As her Padawan's eyes looked ahead blankly, she proceeded to slap her into her senses. "Now, Tott! Don't—go— to— them—!"

Noya's hand came down upon her wrist. She met Arca's gaze with solemn eyes. "Enough, Master Jeth. She does not need the influence of anger. Do what's in your heart, not your head." She nodded her head encouragingly. "The love in your heart you hold. It's powerful, and it will bring her back."

It was the only way. Arca Jeth leaned in, and planted a kiss on the forehead of the beautiful Twi'lek. _Come back_. Thunder roared in the distance by the flash of lightning that lit the darkened areas of the heavens, but she paid no attention. Her apprentice was coming to, telling by the life in her eyes. But she did not expect Tott to leap into her arms the way she did. Her body trembled from a coldness out of an abnormal cause.

She's was so cold. No doubt she was having trouble speaking, Arca spoke through their thoughts.

_How do you feel, my dear?_

_Hot…It's scorching inside of me, but it's subsiding._

Arca sighed in relief as she felt the shivering body in her embrace become steady with calm breathing. Her dark eyes blinked to the shadows in front, hate welling up inside her. Gently, she pulled her Padawan away from her, and activated her lightsaber.

"You will not win!" she hollered fiercely to the queue that faced them. "The Dark Side will not overpower the light! Back down now or perish!"

Light ignited at her side, and she looked to find both Masters Noya Kiriun and Gurlao Nan-Di, lightsabers in hand. Several more blades flashed in the distance of the Jedi line, until the entire row on both her surrounding sides were lit with the vibrant hues of the crystal blades. All who did not activate their weapons were the last of the Padawans, huddled close to one another for safety as demanded by their Masters.

_This will not end…_ Arca could hear the hopeless thoughts of the minds around her. Surely it could. They were not meant to fight forever in the hopes of one domineering race for the Galaxy. _We will fight for eternity… this will not end…_

Dark clouds loomed overhead, but above the Jedi stood an iridescent glimmer in the clouds from the reflections of lightsabers, lighting their way from both ground and air. The shadows were deepened along the Dark Jedi, until their night-pitched robes made them invisible. The wind blew soundly, whistling unevenly over the bodies of the dead scattered everywhere on the flat, dusty-orange plains. It was as though all life ceased to exist prior to the arrival of the Jedi and the forming legion of Sith. The deserted plains were theirs to rule in their battle of terror.

Lightning struck, and Arca Jeth swore she caught a shift in the Dark Jedi's row, as though they had all taken a simultaneous step forward. Soon enough, the shadows in which the Sith stood were no longer entirely darkened. Red blades hovered like holograms in thin air, green, blue, and purple sabers of all hues soon to follow in the procession. The blades of light began to near, slowly, chillingly patient. Their calm approach would not hold for long, Arca knew. It was not in the nature of a Dark Jedi to stand in peaceful assembly— they were driven by anger, and a ferocious fury that burned like molten lava within them.

More lightning struck, and thunder roared in return. Sheet lightning erupted in the sky, and all eyes were to the broad flashes over them. Rolling thunder shattered at the ground like a tremor in the earth. Quake after quake, the sky and the land were alive with ferocity. Lightning ceased for some time, the thunder still bellowing.

Arca, whose gaze had ranged from the action above her and the suspicion ahead that came from the churning in her gut, she looked to the sky where she felt an overpowering of strength. A pillar of flashing light engulfed her, suffocated her for an instant, before leaving her in darkness.

She looked around her, finding nothing but blowing dust and rigid sand dunes. Rocky canyons stretched for the heavens while the hazy wind whistled over the obstruction. No longer Ossus, this was another place. Possibly in time, she did not know. It was unfamiliar to her. The two suns that blazed in the sky came almost as a shock. Of all the missions she been granted, none would have included such a place of such marvel. It would be remembered, she insisted to herself.

There was a hot, bleak atmosphere. Lively and dead at the same time. 

Sand crunched in silent footsteps at her rear. She flashed a glance behind her, and met the eyes of a child. Serene and golden features of a young boy whose sapphire gaze reflected a wideness of knowledge and great hope. 

He looked up at her— required at the Jedi's height— and cocked his head with curiosity. He was studying her intently, but it was nonetheless intimidating. From the darkness of her tightly wound hair, to her soft facial feature, and finally to her brown robes, he stepped forward, and took a concealed hand from beneath the sleeve of her robe. His sun darkened skin, soft and young to the touch, ran over her hand. He studied the neat spiral patterns that tattooed the ringlets around her fingers before meeting her eyes once again, and smiling. He looked up to the sky, full of colors in the setting of the two suns, but dark enough in some areas for stars to be visible.

Something suddenly told her he was not as free-willed or childishly liberated as he seemed. There was a mutual— a truly remarkable— feeling that told her he was a slave. But he had spirit. A great will, and an even more glorious destiny. She felt a sense of peace within him, compassion, and strength. Hope was strong within him. _Great hope._

His eyes twinkled as he gave her a last smile, reading her mind like it was printed before him. And he nodded his head.

Arca stared after him as he walked away, towards the dunes that seemed like miles away. The small form of his little body grew to a hazy outline. His shadow that traced his footsteps at his side took a strikingly startling appearance, one that made her feel queasy and confused. His shadow was dark, darker than the light he radiated. It was the presence of darkness, while still in the midst of light.

Balance.

The boy's golden hair flickered in the sunlight before she closed her eyes, smiling serenely. _Take me back_.

The warmth of the sun was gone, and the sandy winds breathed from her hair one last time. 

Dust billowed around her. 

She was back on the battlefield. With a look around her, all laser swords glowing proudly, she staggered ahead of her line. The white blade in her hand deactivated. This was her legion, she stated solemnly, and the others would follow.

Jedi weapons, one by one, followed her lead, but none of them understood.

Arca raised her arms, and spoke loudly into the sky to all that desire to listen. 

"There shall be no war this day! I have seen its uselessness." She paused, eyes on the procession of Dark knights. "There is no victor. There may never be. We have created strong armies of the Light and the Dark, and we shall continue to wage war on one another." Her voice dropped and she turned to the Jedi of the Force. "Neither of us shall ever win. But the future holds hope. Balance, I have seen… Peace among all. If we believe it, it will come. Here, I announce the fateful addition to our Code. I promise there will be balance. The Force shall be counteracted equally…"

We carry on our strength for the future. The Jedi believe it to be, so it shall come. We will see balance in the Force soon enough, and all in our future teachings shall know of this.

_The Dark Jedi, our eternal foes, are exiled from the Republic in the hopes we can achieve peace as we wait for our day._

_The Code has been modified in occurrence to the Great Sith War of the planet Ossus. There shall only be two among us all— Light and Dark Knights alike—One Master, One Apprentice. The ways of the Jedi will be the fulfillment of peace in the Galaxy. We live by the Code. We fulfill the Code._

_Peace over Anger._

_Honor over Hate._

_Strength over Fear._

_We will succeed. As promised by the will of the Force, there shall be balance. A Prophecy has been summoned. There is a Chosen One to be among us…_

_-CF_

---

            … Well, that's gotta be one of the oddest things I've written! Daamn… Please review— thoughts are greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading, I hope it was somewhere near enjoyable…


End file.
